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WHAT NOBODY’S SEEING IN THE AI REBOUND…

39m 40s

WHAT NOBODY’S SEEING IN THE AI REBOUND…

In this episode of the podcast, Patrick Serezna and Kevin Muir devote the show to a charts-only review of the market following the midterm elections. They open by noting that the initial post-election reaction was actually higher, so the subsequent sell-off was not as obvious in real time as hindsight suggests. The S&P 500 corrected about 7% peak-to-trough, but the damage was concentrated in the Nasdaq, down 16%, and semiconductors, down 30%, reinforcing their view that the AI trade has entered a bear market. Crucially, breadth has improved to roughly 72% of stocks above their 50-day moving averages, showing a clean rotation into defensives and health care rather than a broad liquidation. The hosts then debate the likely "pain trade." Patrick argues the market may rally long enough to squeeze shorts and validate dip buyers, while Kevin warns the truly painful scenario is AI weakness spreading to the whole market in a second leg. Patrick's dot-com comparison shows the S&P can lag the Nasdaq's top by months, so a broad rollover may wait until January or later. They then discuss hot inflation, the Fed's hawkish pivot and the possibility of a 50-basis-point move, the dollar's decisive breakout against every major currency, and gold's continued bear-market breakdown, with downside targets near 3,600 or 3,200. Finally, they analyze oil's textbook 50% retracement, depleted inventories, and Iran-related supply risk, concluding that the asymmetry favors upside and that energy stocks look like a buying opportunity.

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Speaker 1hit it it's thursday november 12
Speaker 22026 episode 307 i'm patrick serezna and i'm kevin muir this
Speaker 1week it's a talking charts only where we check in on what our favorite resident technician sees in the market patrick before we start you had that terrific master class last week with the nancy pelosi trade what do you got planned for the upcoming weeks
Speaker 2next week on tuesday november 17th at 4 p.m eastern we're doing part two of the four-part option master class series and this time we're going to break down that jp morgan options whale kev that me and you have talked about so many times before on the show now why would nearly a 20 billion dollar fund use options to protect its stock portfolio we're going to break it down exactly how it works and how you can even replicate it in your own account so register in the description below or just visit bigpicture trading.com all right well kev we're going to get to the charts but let's just quickly slam a little bit of a break we're going to get to the charts but let's just quickly slam a little bit of a disclaimer in there sure
Speaker 1nothing in this podcast should be viewed as investment advice listeners should consult an investment professional before making any decisions regarding topics mentioned in the show side effects of too much huddle may include the ai founder dependency syndrome the sticky inflation denial complex and then something i'm suffering from the gold trapdoor
Speaker 2disorder yes yeah this is that is definitely a disorder you
Speaker 1have to deal
Speaker 2with all right all right all right i want to get we'll get into these markets i just want to like uh talk about the beer i'm drinking for a second here let's crack it open it's uh called blue balls it's it's what happens when you own too many crude oil contracts over the last two weeks uh but let's uh let's get to these charts so okay um we got um uh obviously an election post-election dump in the markets and uh and i'm quite a meaningful bounce in the s&p 500 get on to the post-election
Speaker 1dump let's not forget that the initial first day reaction was actually up yes and that's one thing i think that everyone now is quickly saying oh it was so obvious that we would sell off the reality is and i and i highlighted this that most professional investors were talking about the fact that this was a market clearing event like the takes out the overhang and we and the initial days of the you know few hours or even the full day we were up on that first day so it's it's now easy in hindsight to say oh so obvious the market was going to go down but very few people had that call i
Speaker 2don't i don't i actually don't even want to talk about it like it was obvious what happened let's let's uh let's talk about what is uh uh true though okay there was an established bull market that happened off of the april lows and for almost six months the market was in a very clean bull trend higher highs higher lows uh persistently um you know testing new highs in the market everything was working very well during that period there was an ai boom there was all sorts of things going and this breakdown sequence that happened uh whether election driven or not the technical breakdown that happened has violated the market and it's a very clean bull trend and it's a very clean bull trend we so we have some evidence here that there was a technical deterioration cta cell triggers would have been hit uh in some degree or another spikes in volatility have occurred daily implied volatilities well sorry that now the realized volatilities have actually started to spike a lot of that volatility is coming back so this is a reality what's the other things that are really interesting that have to be observed well first of all yes uh the s&p 500 is not where the market's been uh we talked about seven percent peak to trough correction nothing that it would be labeled a big scary drop but the selling was disproportionately driven in the nasdaq which from peak to trough dropped 16 so we had almost uh more than double the percentage drop in the nasdaq than we did the s&p which really actually is an interesting part of the story because the semiconductor index from peak to trough dropped 30 percent during this period so it really is showing like i mean we've already done two or three talking charts where we've called that the ai bubble has burst right like the this this is a part of that theme but what's interesting here kev is is that the breadth of the market uh you know using uh the uh the breadth this is the number of stocks above their 50-day moving averages continues to improve so what we've
Speaker 1actually seen i didn't expect that because it feels terrible
Speaker 2it feels terrible and this is the crazy part is is that we have right now this reading at almost 72 higher than we've been oh you have to go back to january february to see levels that we're like where we're currently trading um in terms of the breadth of this market which is really makes this a sector rotation story which is essentially the ai has been blasted but when everyone's been dumping the ai they haven't been going to cash they have been reallocating and rebalancing portfolios and moving it to other parts of the market things like x the uh look at the health care sector continuing to rip like they stole something on the uh upside you know biotechs continue being a beautiful uptrend uh the um this is the consumer staple sector that continues to press new highs right there's there's these uh defensives sectors within this market that were basically left for dead in many ways and there has been a very clean sector rotation going underway and so if you've been hiding in a basket of stocks like walmart coca-cola um you know costco uh you turn around and throw in some uh you know lily in other stocks like this you're like you haven't noticed there's been anything wrong you're actually saying this has been a great month and um and so what why am i bringing this all up well first of all it really has not been a broad market seller and to me the puzzle to solve is that does the contagion of what happened in the ai stocks and the semiconductors uh deteriorate the market conditions where the selling broadens and things like apple like like again like apple and some of these uh stocks are at 52 week highs does this at some point change liquidity conditions and uh suddenly all of these areas that have been safe havens for the last month join in the selling and we actually have a broader sell-off and i don't even know if i have a full conclusion as to whether it will or wouldn't won't but i think that actually observing in the next couple weeks whether this starts to roll over will be a huge tell as to what's in store because if the if these parts of the market continue to hold up the semiconductor basket is ridiculously oversold like from a technical perspective uh that 30 percent wipe was due for a retracement and now that we had this nvidia washout uh happen on uh on the scandal like this stock like this thing wiped out two trillion dollars of market capitalization in 30 days this one stock two trillion dollars you know like uh it's it's almost like uh you know giving uh half of your money away to in a divorce but uh not yet actually giving the half away like this is like i
Speaker 1have to give
Speaker 2away the other half exactly and the the is so this is all gone fugazi the market capitalization disappear into thin air but this is grossly oversold and in many ways if the whole market stays stable there's an argument to me made that the next uh few weeks could actually have the ai stocks have a brief uh retracement of these ridiculously oversold conditions and so if we don't see the whole broader market roll over if the ai stocks bounce from an incredibly oversold condition then the sell-off may another leg down in the market may not be as imminent as uh some people think that doesn't mean it won't happen it just in order for it to all unravel right now immediately you would need to see the rest of the market join the party which there isn't a lot of evidence that is
Speaker 1happening yeah but you say some people think that the market's going to continue going down do you know any of those people because i don't know anyone everyone i know is buying the dip like with both
Speaker 2fists so would um like think of the pain trade let's let's paint a picture of what a pain trade would look like to me the pain trade is that the rally lasts long enough to wash out short sellers and to genuinely convince the buy on dip traders that they made the right call and buying the dip like if so if you think about how you can trap and screw over the maximum amount of traders and the biggest pain trade is to wash out the short sellers while simultaneously convincing the rest of the market that the buy-on-dip was actually durable and sustainable.
Speaker 1I'm not sure I agree there that that's the pain trade, although I won't push back that that is a pain trade. I think that the real pain trade, Patrick, would be AI continuing to get worse and it rolling over into the whole market. And we've talked about this before. One second. We've talked about this before, Patrick, that the scariest declines are actually the second time. You get the initial decline. Everyone monetizes their hedges. Everyone gets flat. And then vol is too expensive. And at that point, if it continues down, that is when it gets ugly. And I'm not saying that's going to happen because it certainly doesn't look like it. We're taping this Thursday at 12. 12.30 and it feels like everything's okay and we're going to rally back up and it's not going to come unglued. But I think that that is the true pain trade.
Speaker 2Actually, Kev, I feel like we. I feel actually you just described what I was trying to describe. So I actually don't think your pain trade is different. Let me give you the scenario, right? So right now, the S&P 500 is testing its 50-day moving average. And many people basically utilize. that as a kind of arbiter of trend. And if the S&P reclaimed the 50-day and re-entered this trade range, many people would call this correction over and use that as a signal to buy. But the interesting part is that while the S&P is testing its 50-day moving average, the NASDAQ is nowhere near that level. In fact, its Fibonacci zones and what would be a typical retracement still lie 1,000 points higher. So imagine the scenario where, exactly to your point, the AI trade stays in a bear market, which is essentially you have, let's say, the NASDAQ continue to bounce a little bit, but stay below the 50-day and still set up for another decline, the second leg that you're describing. But during a multi-week rally of the NASDAQ back to, let's say, 2950 or 29,500, what if the S&P went and did a double top and went and did a retail, and then the S&P took a test of the high like this? Now, suddenly, everyone that's looking at the S&P says, "Oh, all clear," while the NASDAQ stays explicitly bearish. So this scenario actually describes what you were saying, but it also fits what I was saying, which is, it's like, the point is that it's not going to make it easy
Speaker 1for short sellers to be short. Right, and that's the one lesson that everybody should take. And I always laugh, because people say, "Oh, the dot-com bubble was so easy to trade, you just shorted it." And they weren't there. They don't go back, pull up the NASDAQ 100, look at the decline from 2000, March of 2000, to, what was it, 2002? It declined 80%, 90%, some obscene amount, but count how many rallies of 30, 40% in there. Not only that, I think that there was multiple 10% days, single days. - Yes. - Right? Single days, and that's the nature of a bear market, is that they just get these face rippers where it feels like, oh, okay, everything's great. Oh, is this the chart here that we're looking at? -
Speaker 2So what I did here is, this is basically the NASDAQ, right? So the first crash of the NASDAQ in the dot-com bubble was this 40% shellacking at the beginning, a bear market rally, and then the next leg was over here, but what I want to point out is that the high of the NASDAQ was here, and while it was doing a bear market rally that literally lasted for three plus months, it went and didn't roll over until then. So look at this. This is now just the chart of the S&P, and notice what the S&P did. The NASDAQ went, blew off its top, and the S&P went and did this little one-week correction. - Right. - Then literally spent three months doing a retest of its previous high. - Right. - Before it really rolled over in September, October of 2000, yet by then the dot-com bubble burst three months earlier, four months earlier, and the S&P didn't start rolling over until like literally it didn't break below its 50-week moving average until six months after the dot-com bubble burst. -
Speaker 1Yeah, that's a great point. That's some great comment. -
Speaker 2Right? And so in the same manner, we could have the same scenario, which is like the S&P and all of these stocks that are doing well, the Eli Lilly's, the Apple's, the all of these consumer staple names that have been doing well-- -
Speaker 1You think they're gonna get even more expensive? -
Speaker 2They, no, but the point is that they can hold up longer and farther than a lot of people that are thinking the whole market's gonna roll. While the dot-com bubble burst in June, we probably rolled over again on this next wave over here, and the whole situation may wait till January, February for the S&P and the broader market to fall into some sort of recession flags, the Fed hike too soon, too quickly, all these different things that could potentially have happened that could cause the whole thing to roll. Point is, like I don't wanna spend half an hour just on this. The thing that I really wanna just bring home here is that the NASDAQ's been the only place the selling genuinely has happened. And whether this deteriorates into something bigger, there isn't a lot of evidence yet that we're having a deterioration of conditions in the market that is gonna broaden this to a big sell-off yet, yet. And the question is, does that even happen this year? It could be a January event, right? Like where the whole S&P sells. One way or another, I see very little upside in the markets. To me, it's all a trap. Going along these markets here, you could selectively find names, but it's just, it may not be an immediate downside the way some people are hoping for. - So you're channeling
Speaker 1your inner Admiral Ackbar. It's a trap. It's a crap.
Speaker 2Okay, so, so listen-- - Only the cats will get that. - Let's talk, let's move on though and talk about what just happened with inflation and the FOMC, Waller and all of this. Like to me, so we have this literal deterioration of conditions to some degree. And in fact, in arguably the credit markets have basically cut off the AI growth engine that has been this one of the key precipitating drivers of the growth, the robustly high growth that we've seen in the economy. And so there could be an argument made that growth is gonna clearly come in. It's like that with the AI turn that it's like, let's not call it a recession, but this idea that growth is gonna be coming in on the upper end is very unrealistic moving forward. The same time, oil prices have come off, even though inflation came in hot, oil is one of the key, the precipitating drivers of what's been the supply shock driven inflation driver. Yet at no point up until this week, was there a point where there was a legitimate pricing in of a risk that they were gonna do 50 basis points in one meeting. - I know. - Like couldn't, they couldn't come up with, they couldn't come up with this in September. Like September would have been a perfect moment to do 50 basis points, but they're gonna do it now in December after this. -
Speaker 1No, so really it's the October pause is what's obvious. They pause because they didn't wanna do it in front of the midterms, Patrick. And they say they didn't, they're not political. And I'm like, everyone's political. You don't wanna be, you know, I talk about the analogy of the ref, like it's the seventh game of the Stanley Cup finals. The ref is sitting there and someone trips somebody else. If it's an obvious flagrant trip, they're gonna call it. But if it's kind of on the edge, on the margin, they're gonna let it go. They don't wanna be the ones to decide something, right? They don't wanna be the person, the ref does not wanna decide and dictate who wins the Stanley Cup finals because of a penalty. And that's exactly like the Fed. Obviously, if they really, really, really needed to, they would have raised rates in front of the midterms. And now I think though, in hindsight, given the hot CPI number, it's looking like that they probably should have. And I think that that's why they're putting 50 on the table. They're scared that they missed the chance and they are actually one behind. -
Speaker 2So the market, like right now, based on the Fed funds watch tool here, there's the 87% number for the 25 basis points. And they're giving only a small chance that they do 50 basis points. points, but it's still no, like they, have zero chance that they don't move at this point like i don't obviously that this is still a live number which is that uh some something could happen and they change their path but as of this moment the market has fully baked in the fed moving yeah and the potential is like on a one out of six chance that they might actually do 50 basis point that would and so let's talk about the response because the response was pretty interesting so let me start off here by just showing the sofas and if i can find them here hold on there we go and so this is the uh 2000 december 2027 look at what literally has happened on this chart in the last three trading sessions since the inflation print we basically went uh how many basis points is that this thing is moved 38 points basically uh baking in almost two yeah rate point additional rate uh hikes next year or rate hike and a half rate and hike and a half in there and it all happened rapidly and um and what's crazy is that when you look at for instance what's happening in europe uh they're not it didn't move remotely the same yeah this is the ester december 2027 but you can see it moved a little bit like 15 points but it didn't they didn't move anything similar and so based on rate differentials and and all of these kind of um you know tight market conditions the dollar just blasted off and so the dollar just goes ripping and what was particularly noteworthy about this dollar breakout was that this unlike the last leg where it was a mixed picture as to where the the dollar strength was coming from this is a decisive bull breakout against almost every cross currency like literally every cross currency is moving the euro broke to fresh new lows 110 already we might see 108 in this the pound sterling broke back down to its lows you have the canadian dollar trading back down to its lows after having had a strong bounce the aussie dollar has broken to basically six month lows uh if not almost uh probably yeah like you have to go all the way back to january to see levels like this on uh on the aussie but the and and then and then the yen joined the party the yen was in a uh a six week uh trade range and it also gave out now it's not by any means an extreme move on the yen but it is sending the message that this was u.s dollar up and everything getting blasted
Speaker 1yeah i would agree right all those currencies as you say that technical formation they look like
Speaker 2shit they all they're all breaking down and the dollar's ripping so now um so there are two drivers like um you obviously can have uh funding stresses and also rate differentials that really are kind of in the driver's seat controlling what the currency move is but to be honest whether we argue which one it is the dollar is tight and the dollar is tight and the dollar is tight and the dollar is lightening which is typically not a positive for risk assets right generally a dollar strengthening even if you could argue that it's maybe not a signal of a negative move on assets it's definitely not a bullish tailwind on risk assets and in many ways a lot of things obviously we'll talk about gold here in a moment but what we have is real rates rising nominal rates rising dollar breaking out and to be honest i don't think it was that crazy of an outlier on inflation it's just the tone uh uh immediately pivoted like literally the
Speaker 1inflation was hot patrick there was no doubt about it the inflation was hot and the employment was good too they were both they were both strong numbers and that's why the fed's panicking and and trying to slow down the okay or at least put the look at this chart
Speaker 2okay you see this september came in uh on core at 0.3 october came in at 0.3 uh and suddenly november came in at 0.3 this is not hot this is the same as it was the last two months that's the core i
Speaker 1think it wasn't the headline no no
Speaker 2now now you're talking about uh the cpi the main cpi you can observe we went september came in at 0.4 uh october came in at 0.5 or actually 0.6 and then this month we came in at 0.4 the point is these weren't blowout numbers that this is literally consistent with what we have seen every month
Speaker 1for the last two months yes i am not disagreeing with you that the well actually pull that back up because i'm i i am going to push back a little bit um look at 2025 and 2024 and you see how those they were averaging less these are averaging higher the last three months are higher than the average of the previous two years and not only that this was at a period when everyone thought it was going to roll back over and it's not it is i'm going to push back the inflation numbers whether you think the fed should chase rates higher or not is another story but the inflation numbers were hotter than than than expected not going
Speaker 2to push back on the fact that it's higher than it was in the past this is this is fact but oil was literally at 105 dollars last month okay so oil was at the upper end nobody unless you were an ostrich with your head in the freaking sand there is no way that that there was going to come some huge uh um you know pullback on inflation expectations now i'm not saying it should have been super hot but the fact that it came in similar to previous months is it what everyone got blindsided now we're ripping the dollar higher and and so far it's collapsing and we got to get 50 basis points in like somehow something happened that triggered everyone and it doesn't to me like were people this oblivious to something as we're just staying in line with what has been happening in the past like to me it's kind of crazy
Speaker 1i think everyone was expecting the economy to roll over a little more and and that's that's the truth anyway so now the fed's going hey wait it's not rolling over like we think it is and it's accelerating so therefore you know what maybe we should panic patrick this is the oldest time buddy that the fed panics and the fed and
Speaker 2the fed raises rates till they break something and then they cause a recession and you know what this is this is working out like to the t exactly like it's been in every time exactly so don't fight it just go with what the fed's gonna do i know i'm just giving a little bit of energy here just a little bit okay you know what i'm just having a little bit of blue ball i'm just having a little bit of energy here cap just a little bit i'm just having a little bit of energy here cap just a little bit of energy here cap just a little bit based on uh you know watching these i don't want to be associated with your blue balls buddy um okay what do we got next all right so um so uh the next thing obviously we should transition into then what's happening with gold uh um i don't know who's been bullish gold in the last little while i'm not going to name
Speaker 1names actually i i want to i want to jump in here because i've heard through my sources that in your in your um big picture trading seminars you've been slagging me and i feel like you should slag me to my face if you're gonna slag me and and you'd be listen the
Speaker 2only slag that i that i consistently have is the fact that your ideas are always great but you're always too early that's this this is this is the only thing i ever say kev so there isn't anything new for me to to to rip into you anyways i want to say something though patrick i want to say
Speaker 1something you were right oh now you're going to gucci this stop it stop it and i'll and i'll tell you what i did just quickly so we had this turtle head right that went down it broke down to new lows then it went up into the range everything felt great so i was long on the turtle head the failed technical breakdown i bought it and then on wednesday it started trading like shit and i was with gold and I just couldn't figure it out and it made me nervous because the market was screaming higher and gold was just getting sold like you know like uh like you know beating like a baby seal like you know terrible image yeah she's being beaten yeah and so I said I said I'm going back to just long so I was extra long and I'm back to regular long so I will take flack but I will say that I did you know put some money management in there and just go that's it this isn't doing what I thought it should do and I'm actually out of all the gold bulls that I know I'm probably more worried about the short term than than they are because they all seem to be dismissing this and I'm like no this isn't trading well this is and you know I'm gonna let you tell me on a technical basis why this isn't trading well but it feels terrible to me what do
Speaker 2you like I don't like it's lower highs lower lows after 60 days of pure selling it was going to react even freaking natural gas reacts off of a 60 days of sustained selling the fact is it rejected its 50-day moving average couldn't follow through for more than five days and is back to making fresh lows like this is still a bear market end of story like um the what so i'm going to go back here and this is the weekly chart and this was that extraordinary bull market we had and we're in the midst of some form of a mean reversion now i do not think we're eiffel towering we're not going back to 2000 or something ridiculous like this but um can we reach like the 50 retracement of this bull market is 3600 uh and a 61.8 retracement is 3200 is just and if you observe this was the big consolidation uh level right in here uh that occurred uh in 2025 like is it in uh out of realistic expectation that gold could have a trip down 10 20 percent uh and and snag down into the 3600 and and under the right uh conditions of illiquidity like so let's say there's a market washout event occurring could it temporarily wash from 3600 down to 3200 in uh in a washout like i would back up the truck and be buying every ounce of gold i could get my hands on if it got down there but uh but at this moment there is zero evidence that that gold is uh imminently going to base here and rally like what would what would make me short-term bullish on gold if something broke and the fed had to pivot if if the fed immediately pivoted on their hawkishness because something in the financial plumbing busted and they had to say we need to provide liquidity if that happened tomorrow i would be buying every ounce of gold that's not nailed down and um and it would be to me like the macro event catalyst that would genuinely be evidence that this entire tide will turn but until then it's bleeding it's bleeding it's uh there's there's a wound and the blood is leaking out and you got to let the patient bleed out before you buy uh pick up the corpse off the ground and and play the next bull market there's going to be a bot i'm going to listen patrick
Speaker 1the the more terrible mortician you don't pick up the corpse until it falls i don't know like there you go whatever it is i love it okay uh you know what the point is this patrick that the fed has gone and thrown a wrench into this and the reality is that as the fed is tight it is squeezing everything except ai i could make the case that the fed's tightness is actually going to be part of the reason that ai is rallying and it's going to make a bottom here because it feels to me that it's forcing people out of the other things like small caps like golds it's there's it's pushing us into a global recession and if it does that then you should be selling those things like gold and and and and by the way maybe that's also why oil is going down i know a lot of people are talking about oil going down because of the war there might be an element of it as well going down because of the fact that we the fed's too tight anyways let's keep going that could have been so let's let's let's talk
Speaker 2oil and then we'll wrap it up for today like we'll just think but in the end this is so i i'm specifically wanted to bring the january contract up because we're about next next week we're rolling from the december contract to january so this is going to be the front month contract on oil uh and i think that it's better than the continuous chart which uh i feel is uh is not accurately reflecting what's happened in the last six months now we had uh we were talking about on the show how extraordinary this bull run was on the upside and that was being disguised by the fact that you know people that weren't well we're only looking at the very front month missed this big run in oil that happened broadly but so far this has been nothing but a 50 retracement which is has given back half of the gains made from the bull impulse from june right like and so it's literally the 50 percent uh of it and at the same time what were previous highs act as support this correction in oil has actually just been a textbook pullback like in a bull market there uh it is very common for there to be a bull impulse and half of the gains are given back in a natural thing when we're looking at the geopolitics of where we are um trump just uh literally tweeted out today that that you know uh they want vance working on other stuff and that this war with iran um is you know they're in a good position long term so there it's like he's literally advertising that that there's no imminent de-escalation happening um and so we have a situation where uh you know i i ran is literally attacking all the ships uh you know uh basically trying to choke off any supply going through in so far the us has quite successfully gotten ships through the strait which has allowed on the the interim oil markets to stay somewhat balanced but any re-escalation there is no cushion in the global oil inventories to absorb another oil shock and the only way like after i think it's going to take a little bit of time but i think it's going to take a little bit of time but i think it's going to take a little bit of time but i think that number was like a billion barrels i know i know the uh like there's different numbers out there but i've heard the billion barrel number out there uh of that's depleted global inventories and and strategic reserves the point is is that it doesn't matter what a number what the exact number is it's about the fact that if another oil shock came there isn't the same absorption that can happen from inventories that was there before and uh and so all you need is one disruptor to come into this market and oil has no choice but to go higher and the crazy part about this kev i'm just going to step back and think uh reflect on this i don't you know maybe uh obviously any of us that uh have uh white hair like me and you actually i don't have hair
Speaker 1but anyway but for
Speaker 2yourself well remember that oil went to a hundred and fifty dollars a barrel without an iranian war back in 2007 into 2008 in in a spectacular run on the upside which is the equivalent of like on an inflation-adjusted basis 250 oil today yeah right like on an inflation-justed basis it is not a crazy thought most people find it absurd to like oh what do you mean 120 or 150 barrel but right now there is no with no midterms left there is very little that is uh that is disincentified like what point do at this point would trump have to interfere with oil prices now that the midterms are past if oil goes ripping to 110 there's no one that's got a huge political agenda to keep prices down they might actually let it
Speaker 1go yeah i don't know i i can i'm uh selling out way out of the money like a few days to a week puts on oil and buying like the equivalent dollar value call just in case there's some sort of geopolitical event and as long as i don't get a situation where like even in this decline i've managed to squeak it out and you're doing a
Speaker 2texas hedge buddy you're selling
Speaker 1puts to buy calls yeah but but what do they call that a risk reversal or whatever yeah as long as as long as there's enough of a skew on the downside and i'm selling them to the point where it is like i like it yeah that's how i'm playing it because i want to be there in case there is some sort of event i love it because the
Speaker 2asymmetry in my opinion right now is clearly after already a 20 drop in oil yeah the risk of another 10 to 20 drop further is i think that like the way i put it why i'm
Speaker 1playing that because you just said where's the risk the risk is the upside not the downside exactly like where's the next ten dollar move in oil is the next ten dollar move down or up yeah so i'm selling the left tail buying the right
Speaker 2tail uh yeah i i love it bud i love it yeah that's uh great and what's interesting is that the energy stocks i'm just gonna use the xle but the energy stocks went through a pullback they're already starting to turn back up uh i think that this was a big buy this was a dip that to to uh that right down to a fibbered uh i think that uh all this weakness in energy it's an opportunity bam all right you know what that's all i got is there something else you
Speaker 1wanted to touch on no that's terrific everyone stay safe out there be careful crazy markets thanks for tuning in and you all know where to find us so have a great week take care cheers everybody

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. The episode is a "talking charts only" session focused on post-election market action, with a promotion for a November 17 options master class on replicating JPMorgan's options strategy.
  2. The S&P 500 fell about 7% peak-to-trough, but selling was concentrated in the Nasdaq (down 16%) and semiconductors (down 30%), consistent with the hosts' earlier "AI bubble has burst" thesis.
  3. Market breadth improved, with roughly 72% of stocks above their 50-day moving averages, indicating a sector rotation into defensives like health care, biotech, consumer staples, and names such as Walmart, Coca-Cola, Costco, and Eli Lilly rather than a broad sell-off.
  4. The hosts debate the "pain trade"
  5. Patrick uses the 2000 dot-com analogy to show the S&P can hold up for months after the Nasdaq tops, so a broader rollover may not be imminent and could even be a January event.
  6. Hot inflation data and strong employment pushed the Fed to signal a possible 50-basis-point move, with markets fully pricing a cut and about a one-in-six chance of 50 basis points.
  7. The dollar broke out decisively against nearly every currency (euro, pound, Canadian dollar, Aussie, yen), while gold remains in a bear market with lower highs and lower lows, potentially retracing to 3,600 or even 3,200 in a washout.
  8. Oil's pullback looks like a textbook 50% retracement of the June bull impulse, and with depleted global inventories and ongoing Iran tensions, the hosts see asymmetric upside risk and favor selling downside puts to buy upside calls.

Summary:

In this episode of the podcast, Patrick Serezna and Kevin Muir devote the show to a charts-only review of the market following the midterm elections. They open by noting that the initial post-election reaction was actually higher, so the subsequent sell-off was not as obvious in real time as hindsight suggests. The S&P 500 corrected about 7% peak-to-trough, but the damage was concentrated in the Nasdaq, down 16%, and semiconductors, down 30%, reinforcing their view that the AI trade has entered a bear market. Crucially, breadth has improved to roughly 72% of stocks above their 50-day moving averages, showing a clean rotation into defensives and health care rather than a broad liquidation.

The hosts then debate the likely "pain trade." Patrick argues the market may rally long enough to squeeze shorts and validate dip buyers, while Kevin warns the truly painful scenario is AI weakness spreading to the whole market in a second leg. Patrick's dot-com comparison shows the S&P can lag the Nasdaq's top by months, so a broad rollover may wait until January or later. They then discuss hot inflation, the Fed's hawkish pivot and the possibility of a 50-basis-point move, the dollar's decisive breakout against every major currency, and gold's continued bear-market breakdown, with downside targets near 3,600 or 3,200. Finally, they analyze oil's textbook 50% retracement, depleted inventories, and Iran-related supply risk, concluding that the asymmetry favors upside and that energy stocks look like a buying opportunity.

FAQs

Part two of the four-part Option Master Class series will be held on Tuesday, November 17th at 4 p.m. Eastern. It will break down the JP Morgan options whale trade.

The market initially rose on the first day after the election but then sold off. The sell-off was disproportionately driven by the Nasdaq and semiconductor stocks.

Market breadth has actually improved, with nearly 72% of stocks above their 50-day moving averages. Money appears to be rotating out of AI and semiconductors into sectors like healthcare, biotech, and consumer staples.

The real pain trade would be AI stocks continuing to worsen and dragging the whole market down. The scariest declines are often the second leg, after everyone has already monetized their hedges.

The dollar broke out decisively against almost every major currency, with the euro, pound, Canadian dollar, and Aussie dollar all falling. Rising real rates and a stronger dollar are generally not a positive tailwind for risk assets.

Gold is making lower highs and lower lows, rejected its 50-day moving average, and failed to follow through after a brief bounce. Patrick says there is zero evidence gold is about to base and rally.

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